Ritual (2000, Hideaki Anno)

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Ritual (2000, hideaki anno)

Gorchakov, dreaming of a world without borders, appears to long for Babel – the city that united humanity with a single language. He must also be aware that after divine intervention, Babel became a symbol of the impossibility of reaching the realm of the unknowable and of the consequent damnation to the sphere of translation. The fall or relegation to the state where translation is ‘possible’, indeed even essential, occurred, according to the Old Testament, as a result of the unsuccessful attempt to build a super-structure – the Tower of Babel ‘whose top may reach unto heaven’ (Genesis 11: 4). At the centre of the story is the spatial conflict provoked by linguistic unity: ‘Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do’ (Genesis 11: 6). God imposes a certain spatial limit beyond which humans cannot ascend; everything that remains further than this point in space is destined to be beyond human reason and knowledge. The damnation is achieved by means of a confusion of languages with further dissipation: ‘So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city’ (Genesis 11: 8).

Abroad is a key word which is related to the verb to scatter in the King James’s Version and means in this case a state of being ‘widely asunder’; in its modern use, however, it tends to signify ‘any region outside one’s homeland’ (Oxford English Dictionary). Abroad is the condition of Gorchakov since it describes his estrangement: the protagonist is disconnected from his current surroundings (language, people and landscape), he finds himself abroad in the two senses – ‘widely asunder’ and outside his homeland. Language and topography operate as agents of alienation and the film’s aesthetic strategy is to resolve somehow the divergence between the character’s inner aspirations and outer surroundings.

Nariman Skakov, The (im)possible translation of Nostalgia (Studies in Russian and Soviet Cinema Volume 3 Number 3, publ. 2009)

Ritual (2000, hideaki anno)

Ritual (2000, hideaki anno)

Zdzislaw Beksinski

Ritual (2000, hideaki anno)

Ritual (2000, hideaki anno)

films on youtube

I thought it might be helpful to share this list of films available on YouTube for those who are interested. This will be updated as I find new films, but feel free to add to this list if you wish! 

(Also, you can follow me on Letterboxd if you want to talk about movies and keep up with what I’m watching.)

The Experience (1973), Abbas Kiarostami

The Traveler (1974), Abbas Kiarostami

Close-Up (1990), Abbas Kiarostami

Taste of Cherry (1997), Abbas Kiarostami

The Wind Will Carry Us (1999), Abbas Kiarostami

Shirin (2008), Abbas Kiarostami

Dreams (1990), Akira Kurosawa (Part I / Part II)

Trans-Europ-Express (1966), Alain Robbe-Grillet

L'Homme Qui Ment (1968), Alain Robbe-Grillet

The 39 Steps (1935), Alfred Hitchcock

Sabotage (1936), Alfred Hitchcock

Young and Innocent (1937), Alfred Hitchcock (Part I / Part II)

Rebecca (1940), Alfred Hitchcock

Spellbound (1945), Alfred Hitchcock

Notorious (1946), Alfred Hitchcock

Under Capricorn (1949), Alfred Hitchcock

The Trouble with Harry (1955), Alfred Hitchcock

Goodbye Again (1961), Anatole Litvak

Ivan’s Childhood (1962), Andrei Tarkovsky

Andrei Rublev (1966), Andrei Tarkovsky (Part I / Part II)

Solaris (1972), Andrei Tarkovsky (Part I / Part II)

Mirror (1975), Andrei Tarkovsky

Stalker (1979), Andrei Tarkovsky

Nostalghia (1983), Andrei Tarkovsky

The Sacrifice (1986), Andrei Tarkovsky

Very Nice, Very Nice (1961), Arthur Lipsett

21-87 (1963), Arthur Lipsett

A Trip Down Memory Lane (1965), Arthur Lipsett

A Separation (2011), Asghar Farhadi

The Turin Horse (2011), Béla Tarr

Un Homme Qui Dort (1974), Bernard Queysanne

Il Conformista (1970), Bernardo Bertolucci

The Four Companions (1938), Carl Froelich

Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975), Chantal Akerman

Statues Also Die (1953), Chris Marker, Alain Resnais and Ghislain Cloquet

La Jetée (1962), Chris Marker

Sans Soleil (1983), Chris Marker

The Owl’s Legacy (1989), Chris Marker and Jean-Claude Carrière

If I Had Four Dromedaries (1966), Chris Marker

La Cérémonie (1995), Claude Chabrol

Il Sorpasso (1962), Dino Risi

Interlude (1957), Douglas Sirk

Man With a Movie Camera (1929), Dziga Vertov

Twenty Years Later (1984), Eduardo Coutinho

Jogo de Cena (2007), Eduardo Coutinho

Yi Yi (2000), Edward Yang

Come and See (1985), Elem Klimov

Stéphane Mallarmé (1968), Éric Rohmer

Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927), F.W. Murnau

Love in the City (1953), Federico Fellinni …

La Strada (1954), Federico Fellini

8½ (1963), Federico Fellini

Le Stagioni (1961), Franco Piavoli

Emigranti (1963), Franco Piavoli

Nostos: The Return (1989), Franco Piavoli

Voices Through Time (1996), Franco Piavoli

Landscapes and Figures (2002), Franco Piavoli

Fragments (2012), Franco Piavoli

Die Nibelungen: Siegfired (1924), Fritz Lang

Die Nibelungen: Kriemhilds Rache (1924), Fritz Lang

Metropolis (1927), Fritz Lang

M (1931), Fritz Lang

The Battle of Algiers (1966), Gillo Pontecorvo

Death Laid an Egg (1968), Giulio Questi

Walpurgis Night (1935), Gustaf Edgren

Intermezzo (1936), Gustaf Molander

Dollar (1938), Gustaf Molander

A Woman’s Face (1938), Gustaf Molander

Only One Night (1939), Gustaf Molander

Intermezzo: A Love Story (1939), Gregory Ratoff

Simple Men (1992), Hal Hartley

An Inn at Osaka (1954), Heinosuke Goshu

Woman in the Dunes (1964), Hiroshi Teshigahara

After Life (1998), Hirozaku Kore-eda

Summer Interlude (1951), Ingmar Bergman

Summer With Monika (1953), Ingmar Bergman

The Seventh Seal (1957), Ingmar Bergman

Wild Strawberries (1957), Ingmar Bergman

The Virgin Spring (1960), Ingmar Bergman

Through a Glass Darkly (1961), Ingmar Bergman

The Silence (1963), Ingmar Bergman

Winter Light (1963), Ingmar Bergman

Persona (1966), Ingmar Bergman

Hour of the Wolf (1968), Ingmar Bergman

Shame (1968), Ingmar Bergman

The Passion of Anna (1969), Ingmar Bergman

Cries and Whispers (1972), Ingmar Bergman

La Belle Noiseuse (1991), Jacques Rivette

Diamonds of the Night (1964), Jan Němec

Valerie and Her Week of Wonders (1970), Jaromil Jireš

Orphée (1950), Jean Cocteau

The Mother and the Whore (1973), Jean Eustache

My Little Loves (1974), Jean Eustache

À Propos de Nice (1930), Jean Vigo

Vivre Sa Vie (1962), Jean-Luc Godard

Masculin Féminin (1966), Jean-Luc Godard

Chronicle of Anna Magdanela Bach (1968), Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet

Class Relations (1984), Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet

Antigone (1992), Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet

Les Enfants Terribles (1950), Jean-Pierre Melville

Le Deuxième Souffle (1966), Jean-Pierre Melville

Down by Law (1986), Jim Jarmusch

My Left Foot: The Story of Christy Brown (1989), Jim Sheridan

Hovering Over the Water (1986), João César Monteiro

God’s Comedy (1995), João César Monteiro

Vai e Vem (2003), João César Monteiro

Faces (1968), John Cassavetes

Minnie and Moskowitz (1971), John Cassavetes

Opening Night (1977), John Cassavetes

Just One Kid (1974), John Goldschmidt

Reminiscences of a Journey to Lithuania (1972), Jonas Mekas

Song of Avignon (1998), Jonas Mekas

The Act of Killing (2012), Joshua Oppenheimer

…À Valparaíso (1963), Joris Ivens

Ugetsu (1953), Kenji Mizoguchi

Camera Buff (1979), Krzysztof Kieślowski

No End (1985), Krzysztof Kieślowski

Blind Chance (1987), Krzysztof Kieślowski

A Short Film About Killing (1988), Krzysztof Kieślowski

A Short Film About Love (1988), Krzysztof Kieślowski

The Ascent (1977), Larisa Shepitko

Dancer in the Dark (2000), Lars von Trier

Poetry (2010), Lee Chang-dong

This Sporting Life (1963), Lindsay Anderson

if…. (1968), Lindsay Anderson

The Fire Within (1963), Louis Malle

Sandra (1965), Luchino Visconti

The Sunday Woman (1975), Luigi Comencini

L’Âge d’Or (1930), Luis Buñuel

Nazarin (1959), Luis Buñuel

Black Orpheus (1959), Marcel Camus

Vermilion Souls (2007), Masaki Iwana

La Haine (1995), Mathieu Kassovitz

Meshes of the Afternoon (1943), Maya Deren

Letter from an Unknown Woman (1948), Max Ophüls

Black Narcissus (1947), Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger

Gone to Earth (1950), Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger

Gente del Po (1947), Michelangelo Antonioni

Il Grido (1957), Michelangelo Antonioni

L’Avventura (1960), Michelangelo Antonioni

La Notte (1961), Michelangelo Antonioni

Red Desert (1964), Michelangelo Antonioni

Zabriskie Point (1970), Michelangelo Antonioni

The Passenger (1975), Michelangelo Antonioni

Loves of a Blonde (1965), Miloš Forman

The Stranger (1946), Orson Welles

Macbeth (1948), Orson Welles

F for Fake (1973), Orson Welles

Black Girl (1966), Ousmane Sembène

June Night (1940), Per Lindberg

Punishment Park (1971), Peter Watkins

Mamma Roma (1962), Pier Paolo Pasolini

World on a Wire (1973), Rainer Werner Fassbinder

Martha (1974), Rainer Werner Fassbinder

Chinese Roulette (1976), Rainer Werner Fassbinder

City of Pirates (1983), Raúl Ruiz

Time Regained (1999), Raúl Ruiz

Framed (1947), Richard Wallace

Fragile as the World (2011), Rita Azevedo Gomes

Quintet (1979), Robert Altman

Four Nights of a Dreamer (1971), Robert Bresson

Rome, Open City (1945), Roberto Rossellini

The Flowers of St. Francis (1950), Roberto Rossellini

Journey to Italy (1954), Roberto Rossellini

Repulsion (1965), Roman Polanski

Cul-de-sac (1966), Roman Polanski

Songs from the Second Floor (2000), Roy Andersson

You, the Living (2007), Roy Andersson

Two (1965), Satyajit Ray

The Color of Pomegranates (1968), Sergej Parajanov

The Count of the Old Town (1935), Sigurd Wallén, Edvin Adolphson

A Day at the Beach (1972), Simon Hesera

Indiscreet (1958), Stanley Donen

The Haircut (1982), Tamar Simon Hoffs

A Page of Madness (1926), Teinosuke Kinugasa

Badlands (1973), Terrence Malick

About Something Different (1963), Věra Chytilová

Daisies (1966), Věra Chytilová

Shoeshine (1946), Vittorio de Sica

Umberto D. (1952), Vittorio de Sica

Land of Silence and Darkness (1971), Werner Herzog

Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972), Werner Herzog

Wings of Desire (1987), Wim Wenders

The Only Son (1936), Yasujirō Ozu

The Brothers and Sisters of the Toda Family (1941), Yasujirō Ozu

There Was a Father (1942), Yasujirō Ozu

Late Spring (1949), Yasujirō Ozu

Early Summer (1951), Yasujirō Ozu

The Flavor of Green Tea Over Rice (1952), Yasujirō Ozu

Tokyo Story (1953), Yasujirō Ozu

Early Spring (1956), Yasujirō Ozu

Equinox Flower (1958), Yasujirō Ozu 

Late Autumn (1960), Yasujirō Ozu

I let my love for cinema destroy my life... but I’m still always eager to see a good film.

It’s not important who made it.

Just seeing it is the important thing.

The cinema lost me my job.

It robbed me of my life... my social identity.

But even now, just one good film and I eagerly turn back to cinema.

If I had the money, I might, for example, like Peter Falk, buy kites so I wouldn’t grow up.

The cinema.

Whenever I see a film, I dissolve myself in it... to such an extent that I reach the bottom.

I fade out and perhaps... I get lost in it.

And this has played an essential role in my life.

Cinema is important to me. It’s like a prism.

A good film... is part of my life.

With every good film I see, I feel reborn.

It feels as if I made it myself, as if it were my creation.

I identify with the director.

I identify with the actors.

I feel attuned and in harmony with the atmosphere of the film.

I feel as if it’s my story.

That’s how films carry me away.

That’s why they’ve become my obsession.

If I didn’t have to live in society, I’d seek shelter in the mountains and live all by myself.

If I didn’t have to go on living, and were courageous enough, I’d have liked to be hanged from the beams of cinema.

If I had the courage to protest... I would use filmmaking as a tool to fight all injustice.

—Hossein Sabzian in Close-Up Long Shot